For over a decade, Amazon and Microsoft; two technological giants are continuously working on developing different products and services to help businesses adopt technological advancements and stay relevant to changing market trends. If you are a manufacturer and plan to modify your organization and make your business software-driven and information based, there are several factors that you need to consider before opting for a specific platform.

Iot Options For Industries

No matter whether you opt for Amazon or Microsoft platform, it is extremely important that you build a strong infrastructure to fully benefit from their cloud services. To have a strong IT infrastructure, it is extremely important that you keep it up to date daily as you include new kinds of data and as cloud services in the market get updated and launched.

You can also use the software as a service (SaaS) to help you with the management and maintenance of your cloud platform. The selection also depends on the needs and objectives of your business. The amount of money that you are willing to invest also affects your final decision. You also need to determine the skills and knowledge of your employees so that they can be trained to offer valuable services to the clients right at the outset.

For those industrial manufacturers who wish to convert their equipment into digitally interlinked systems, a Software as a service (SaaS) approach won’t help. Not only will it take extra time, but it is also important to keep in mind that not every organization is willing to adopt the same technology that your company does.

Services and Features

Following are some key features and services offered by Amazon and Microsoft IoT platforms:

Management of different devices

Amazon and Microsoft both provide users with the facility to activate a device and regulate its capabilities. This turns out to be quite beneficial to support notions such as devices blacklist.

Data transfer

Microsoft Azure offers assistance for transferring of data to a particular device. However, if you are using AWS platforms, an additional development feature is needed for the transfer of data. To manage the additional features effectively, earning an AWS certification is highly recommended for the staff.

Pricing

IoT solutions offered by Azure are more cost-effective than AWS thus taking Azure training would help. However, at the level of communication, both services provide free tiers.

Device Communication Support

Amazon supports data communication with the help of a rule engine. Devices that are attached to an Amazon IoT platform own a particular subscription that is used to transfer information to their devices.

Security And Reliability

Microsoft IoT Hub uses on TLS protocol to provide data security. All these services are protected through access control that clearly states a set of permissions.

AWS, on the other hand, uses TLS for data security. Users have the option to add certificates to the devices as well as the policies. In case, you are using the AWS platform, to ensure reliability and safety to your customers, an AWS certification such as AWS certified solutions architect can facilitate your staff to achieve that goal for your organization.

IoT Hub

Amazon and Microsoft have built their own Hub to strengthen communication among different devices and backend setups. Since both platforms offer similar services, Amazon and Microsoft both provide package libraries to help users connect their devices with the cloud platform in lesser time.

AWS IoT Core

AWS IoT Core helps to build a simpler and safer connection between devices and cloud applications. Since more and more organizations are opting for the AWS platform and its services, they are in search of trained professionals who can manage their IoT services. So, it is advisable to encourage your staff to obtain AWS certification to provide better IoT services and guarantee customer satisfaction.

AWS IoT Core is designed to support a large number of devices and process messages to Amazon Web Service endpoints as well as other devices. It can also connect with other Amazon cloud services such as Amazon Lambda, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon CloudWatch and AmazonCloudTrail.

Azure IoT Hub

IoT Hub helps developers to create IoT applications and connect a variety of devices with the help of bi-directional messaging. IoT Hub is an extremely versatile platform and supports MQTT HTTP and AMPQ protocols. IoT Hub also works with countless open-source SDKs which consists of Python, .NET, Javascript, Java and C. It helps cloud developers containerizing heavy workloads and process it regionally on various devices with the help of IoT edge.

Safety And Scalability

Presently, Microsoft offers Azure IoT Hub, and Amazon offers IoT Core that helps to check, control and connect with IoT assets and devices. This helps to create safety and scalability for an organization’s various applications. Since IoT is a newer concept, various services are constantly developed by AWS and Amazon alike for controlling and managing IoT devices.

For example, it is possible that you integrate your IoT device with the cloud and find data displayed on the dashboard without any coded input. To build your IoT platform, you will require an extremely versatile system for managing and handling your data and information to allow an advanced level of application layering.

Building Vs Buying

If you have decided to adopt IoT solutions, you can either purchase an IoT platform directly from a vendor or build the IoT solution from scratch over your cloud infrastructure. Most business organizations prefer to build their own IoT solution platform instead of purchasing an IoT solution platform. Since every business organization has its own specific needs and requirements, many software vendors are often not able to meet those specific needs of an organization. The advantages and disadvantages of buying and building an IoT platform are further explained below:

Purchasing an IoT platform directly from a vendor can be time-saving. However, it can prove to be a bit more costly. Also, you may not always have the option of having a primary cloud platform. Or, the platform could be a highly restricted one.

In case you decide to independently build a cloud platform, it could turn out to be a cost-effective option. What is more, it gives you more control over cloud operations as the sole authority, with no third party to mediate. Likewise, this option provides you with more flexibility in terms of computation processes. Not only that, but it may also maximize your current cloud subscription. But, for building a cloud platform, you need sound cloud developing skills as a prerequisite.